Certain spaces allow us to engage with certain atua: Conception & creation

If you figured it out, koia kei a koe! Well done! But if the clues from last week’s blog post were too vague, or you haven’t yet figured out which atua I was referring to, she is

Hineteiwaiwa, atua of birth and weaving.

I haven’t been able to find much kōrero about her, other than that she resides over these domains as an atua, or that she is sometimes known as Hina (Moon) and Hinateiwaiwa. This lack of information seems to be a reoccurring theme with our female atua… we know it’s not because there weren’t any or because they weren’t important - because all things have a male and female element in Te Ao Māori (according to a Māori worldview). So if we’ve accounted for seventy+ male atua, there are also female atua to balance the energy out. Anyway, we digress - this is an important kōrero, but also one I’m still researching - so we’ll save this for a future post and some good tea, watch this space.

Where were we, ahhhh the baby. So, I mentioned in last week’s post how I conceived and birthed my baby/the book*; conception in the sense that I visualised it and the birthing was bringing it into its physical form, into Te Ao Mārama, the world of light. With this perspective, was I not in the realm of Hineteiwaiwa the entire time I was producing the book? Remember when we covered Hineahuone (Earth formed Maiden, first woman) and within her story, we learned of how each of the atua gave themselves to us? And I’m pretty sure it was in this post, with Whiro (atua of misfortune and disease), I shared how

we go to certain spaces which allow us to engage with and connect with atua,

and how the expressions of those atua are manifested within us, in order to complete whatever task is required of us…

So, if I entertain the whakaaro (idea) that I’ve been channeling Hineteiwaiwa over the last four months, I can reflect on the commitments, sacrifices and decisions I’ve made for this idea that manifested into a book, and appreciate doing what I thought was necessary for it to grow well and thrive. To my own detriment at times, with sleep deprivation, not the healthiest kai and a whole lot of growth in areas I didn’t realise and didn’t like that growth was required.. but the result was a beautiful book; the culmination of my thoughts, feelings, perspectives at this point in time and a symbol of collective contribution.

As I learn more about Hineteiwaiwa and how she’s expressed within me, I realise that this was never just a book, because creating something isn’t an isolated event. It’s a process, it has a whakapapa (genealogy, process, origin) and it also is whakapapa in action and I think that’s pretty neat.

Tēnā tātou,

Hana.

*I feel pretentious to be calling my book a baby, I know… but the timing works so well with this atua and all the book stuff at the moment. I have no tamariki and have no idea what it means to be hapū and bring new life into the world, so please know that these posts aren’t in any way trying to take away from that and if there’s a problem, please let me know - that’s the last thing I want. Kia ora.